Using this advertisement or the screening from class as an example, discuss how Ernie Kovacs’ artistic experiments with television sound (or silence), aesthetics, and timing dialogue with growing concerns about television’s noisiness and commercialism?
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ReplyDeleteErnie Kovacs’ unique style, with a lack of dialogue, noise and standard commercials, was juxtaposed with the typical loud, commercial programs at the time. He differentiated himself and was able to gain fans that felt that “being a Kovacs’ fan meant also being somehow different from the rest of the TV crowd.” Not only did his fans feel this way, but he was also able to draw advertisers based on the idea that he had a more sophisticated audience. By experimenting with silence in a way that no one else was Kovacs was able to distinguish himself as tasteful and artistic. The print media recognized this and “Kovacs was the only performer on network TV whom critics consistently singled out as a descendant of the avant-garde and video genius in his own right.”
ReplyDeleteNot only was Kovacs able to draw a devoted fan base that appreciated his more artistic aesthetic, but also he was able to keep their trust in a time when people were growing more suspicious of network television. This was accomplished through his often speaking about his “rage at company “suits” whose “efficiency approach to production was antithetical to his method.’” His silent commercials, as seen above, were not only different in style, but in actual content. By never outright saying that he endorsed the product Kovacs was able to show his association and implied support for it without ever having to be overtly commercial.
Spigel talks about “the cultural and industrial demand for TV to seem live, even when it is filmed or taped,” and that silence was associated with death, leading to commercial TV “cultivating ways of filling silence with the sounds of life.” Not only was ‘the noise problem’ a leading cause for TV fraud, as Spigel says, but it caused the public to question television consumerism in general. The Ernie Kovacs Show seems to have come to TV at a time when consumers needed it. The show was mostly silent, the only noise being sound effects and music. Also, it relied heavily on Kovacs’ performance and experimental visuals. Using his skit “Eugene,” Spigel demonstrates how Eugene’s disruptive noise in a gentleman’s club “draws attention to the way mass media and modern technologies of communication have created a battlefield of noise in which the aesthete ideal of quiet contemplation has become unthinkable.” Because the show’s deliberate lack of dialogue, I think it provides a comment on the way television was being produced at the time. It allowed a kind of outlet for viewers from the high-volumed commercials and TV programs that filled every silent moment with noise.
ReplyDeleteDuring the 1950‘s, as Spigel notes in her article “Silent TV,” television critics and viewers alike were becoming disillusioned with television’s unrelenting noise. She takes the word “noise” itself in multiple directions throughout the article; to refer to the non-stop sales pitches of commercials, to the constant chatter of hosts and characters, and to the “lower form of humor” many television shows explored. Spigel notes that Ernie Kovacs’ use of sound (or lack thereof) was seen as refreshing by both industry experts and fans. At the time, television was saturated with commercials, blatant product placements, and hard sells. Certainly stars like Martha Raye and Milton Berle were entertaining, but their programs’ success (and therefore, their success) often felt like it was too closely tied into the success of the products they hawked. Kovacs, on the other hand, created what was seen as true art without the blatant use/exploitation of any consumer packaged good or household device. The “Silent Show” special we viewed in lecture proved that his craft relied not on his linguistic skill, but on his manipulation of sounds and images. Though not truly “silent” television, Ernie Kovacs’ show makes no use of the noise that viewers and critics were growing to resent. To me, his show was infinitely more entertaining than many of the things on television even today, and I appreciate the way his show stands like a blank canvas next to shows like Disneyland and Mama.
ReplyDeleteErnie Kovacs' "silent show" (as analyzed in Lynn Spigel's essay) was a direct response to television commercialism in that it brought a new influential factor to the medium: film. Filmed series were gaining in popularity during the late 1950s (I Love Lucy was one of the highest-rated shows on the air), but style remained mainly influenced by radio, theater, and vaudeville. Kovacs, though, brought film to the small screen in a new and innovative way. Applying the montage theory of Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov, he introduced a "high art" element to television. By building his comedy around the zany associations and atypical sound choices (as evident in his Eugene and Nairobi Trio sketches), Kovacs echoed the theorists' statement that film was for a different purpose than just entertainment. Film in its essence made an argument, defied expectations, and could create social and political meaning. Though drumming apes were hardly political, the mismatched associations served a similar purpose in Kovacs' television. A deeper, more meaningful entertainment was gained by these unique techniques, and their effectiveness is easily judged by the fact that Kovacs had so many passionate fans (many of whom were educated, elite, young, and aspiring). Kovacs' legacy today is still as strong today, and he is remembered for creating original television unlike anything else on the screens at the time. By applying filmic aspects and theories in ways television had never seen before, he asserted that his television was deserving of its fanbase, ratings, and prestige.
ReplyDeleteAs suggested by Spigel in “Silent TV”, Kovacs appealed to an audience that did not buy into the typical commercial style of television in the 1950s. People that became fed up with the noise of shows and commercials, which “also came to stand for a more general disgust with television’s tasteless entertainment and its lowbrow status” (179), turned to Kovacs’ form of silent entertainment. In a way, the “Silent Show” became an oasis for the members of the public who were against more mainstream forms of TV entertainment. Kovacs’ experiments with television poked holes in the dominant ideas of commercial TV, but capitalized on viewers’ demands for less noise. Kovacs was able to make a statement about TV through his artistic presentation of the skewed point of view of the viewer. For example, in the “Eugene” segment of his show, as he sits at a crooked table while the camera is tilted, it becomes clear that the camera is able to paint an inaccurate portrait of a scene. Kovacs demonstrates the idea that the viewer should not always trust what is seen on TV, distancing himself from the more popular forms of television that utilized these types of illusions without alerting the audience. Additionally, the artistic nature of his program gave Kovacs an alternate route to selling products to his audience. As shown in this commercial for Dutch Masters cigars, Kovacs turned to silent, smart humor to sell products. He was not completely separate from the commercial realm of television, although he resisted its conventions.
ReplyDeleteI think The Ernie Kovacs show was definitely a rebellion from the standard shows and advertisements found on television at the time. After the introduction of TV, there were a variety of shows that all seemed to have the same setup and dynamics. Once people started to get comfortable with the ways that normal television programs ran, I think this is when Ernie Kovacs decided to step in and go against the mainstream. In the "Silent TV" reading, Kovacs decided to have his NBC silent show contain no dialogue. Although at first this just seemed to be a challenge at how television is physically too loud, Silent TV explains, "TV noise also came to stand for a more general disgust with television's tasteless entertainment and its lowbrow status". It is because of this that Kovacs was able to successfully maintain a fan base that shared the similar distaste for the conventional television broadcast.
ReplyDeleteI think the commercial is a great example for how Kovacs never abided by the rules of conventional TV. even his commercials were strange, and it's even kind of ironic that he is doing a commercial in the first place. I think he tried to make a parody of the whole commercial to support his counter-culture beliefs.
Ernie Kovacs changed the way advertisers viewed the concept of advertising, and the way that viewers reacted to said advertisements. During the 1950s, noisiness was almost equivalent with television fraud. Kovacs’ idea of critically and artistically looking at what sound really means to TV could not have come at a more opportune time. Spiegal implies that in the years just prior to his death, many companies besides Dutch Masters had begun to use the trademarks of Kovacs work in their own silent commercials. It would have been interesting to see how far Kovacs’ influence over silent TV and commercials would have spread had he not passed away as early as he did. Most commercials now seem to have reverted back to a need for sound. In December of last year there was another FCC ruling passed requiring that commercials not be louder than program. It was called the CALM Act. (http://www.fcc.gov/guides/program-background-noise-and-loud-commercials) It is something I personally have experienced, and so I can understand the appeal Kovacs’ silent commercials would have had amongst the general public. Also, the physical comedy, like the dropping of the cigars into water from the commercial gives a viewer a pleasant association with the product. Being annoyed by blaring noise would seem to be a negative advertising tactic. As viewers dislike the product simply because the noise annoys them, the product itself becomes, essentially, guilty by association, regardless of the product quality.
ReplyDeleteErnie Kovacs' experimentation with sound and silence was a part of a crucial argument relating to the noisiness of commercials at the time. As Spigel writes in "Silent TV," "Kovacs was not anti-commercial" (131/202). In fact, Kovacs was a huge proponent of his sponsor, Dutch Masters, because they gave him the freedom to create silent programs, as well as the silent commercial that is posted in this blog prompt.
ReplyDeleteHere, we have a narrator who pokes fun at the commercial industry by speaking from a script that is meant to befuddle the audience and slightly frustrate them with his big words. But then the narrator leads us to Kovacs, standing peacefully with his box of Dutch Masters. We get a laugh as he silently drops the cigars into a pool of water, and the camera pans to a box of Dutch Masters atop a towel. It doesn't matter that the audience has not been presented with the technicalities about why this cigar brand is supposedly better than others. The logo "Step Up to Finer Smoking Pleasure" is featured prominently at the end of the commercial, and all in all the audience associates the product with a pleasant viewing moment.
In the screening we viewed, when Ernie Kovacs goes to the boys' club, the timing of unique sounds (like when he opens up different books), and comedic tomfoolery (the slanted table), give the audience a chance to appreciate his minimalist approach to his TV episode's soundtrack. Most audiences of the time were used to the hard-sell approach of TV commercials, and TV viewers were often surrounded by noisy advertisements that broke into their homes without welcome. Kovacs' programming, however, allowed the families to have a moment of silence in their television evenings, and enjoy the picture rather than the audio in the programming and advertisements.
Kovacs starts off this commercial by making fun of the standard commercial industry that most American households were used to. The dialogue is purposely pompous in its successive use of large words that the average television viewer would not be able to follow during his or her first time hearing. This uppity attitude is soon contradicted once the commercial redeems and explains itself - in a self-reflexive manner - "in other words, everybody's a little 'bagged'." Kovacs is using this harsh shift from one dimension of commercialism to another to interest a different type of audience, namely the one that became fed up with the way products were so forwardly advertised in television programs.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the concerns of 'noisiness' of commercialism - not only in the literal sense but also in the figurative in-your-faceness of advertising at the time - Kovacs is using this commercial as an extension towards those who were sick of having everything thrown at them numerous times within an hour long program. He gained an audience who appreciated his spin on commercialism and his mocking of the intrusive companies that would not leave America's household.
As discussed in Spiegel's "Silent TV," during the 1950s, newspaper critics and television viewers began to express displeasure for the overzealous and high-pitched advertisements and endless babble in television programs. This debate about television noise led to artistic experimentation with television's audio-visual possibilities. According to Spiegel, "In the context of concerns about television noise, people in the television industry began to experiment with silence as a logical response to audio displeasure." Of all those who began experimenting with visual style in television comedy, Ernie Kovacs was undoubtedly the most prolific. As seen in the short clip above, Ernie Kovac's show contained no dialogue. However, his character Eugene manages to still make a lot of noise with clashes, clangs, bangs, etc. Kovac's absurd tricks and skits resulted in programs that differed greatly from most other television programs. Kovac's character Eugene performed a certain skit which drew attention to the way the mass media has created a battlefield of noise in which the ideal of quiet contemplation has become unthinkable. However, even though his television show aimed to deliberately point out the trouble of television's growing noisiness and commercials, he was not anti-commercial himself. The clip above appropriately demonstrates how Ernie Kovacs essentially danced to the beat of his own drum on television. While his show is clearly featuring an advertisement, he does it in an unconventional way, making his commercial look as though he messed up and did not mean to drop all the Dutch Masters in the water.
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